The technology of the present disclosure relates to an optical scanning device and an image forming apparatus including the same.
In the related art, an image forming apparatus employing an electrophotographic system, such as a copy machine and a printer, includes an optical scanning device that emits light for forming an electrostatic latent image on a photosensitive drum, and a developing device for developing the electrostatic latent image formed on the photosensitive drum as a toner image.
The optical scanning device has a housing that receives a polygon mirror, an image forming lens and the like. The housing is formed with light emitting ports from which light is emitted. The light emitting port includes an opening extending in a predetermined direction. The light emitting port is closed by a transparent cover.
When dirt, dust and the like due to toner and the like are attached to the surface of the transparent cover, there is a problem that the optical characteristics of the optical scanning device are deteriorated and thus image failure occurs. In this regard, there has been proposed a cleaning mechanism 101 as illustrated in FIG. 20 to FIG. 22. The cleaning mechanism 101 has a cleaning member 103 for cleaning a transparent cover 102, a holding member 104 for holding the cleaning member 103, and a screw shaft 105 for fitting and supporting the holding member 104.
The holding member 104 is configured to reciprocally move along the screw shaft 105 when the screw shaft 105 is rotated forward and backward by a motor. In this way, the cleaning member 103 reciprocally moves while abutting the surface of the transparent cover 102, so that the surface of the transparent cover is cleaned by the cleaning member 103.